EMAIL TO FAMILY AND CLOSE FRIENDS
Support from your family and close friends early in your campaign is one of the most important steps for you to get the most help with vet bills—their support can be what kickstarts your campaign so you can pay your pet’s veterinarian bills. What makes people understand that you need vet bill help?
From this group, you are asking your family and close friends for two things:
Although it is easiest to do a large email or text blast, a personal message to each person to go along with your campaign’s link is more meaningful and more likely to encourage them to help you.
To help get you started, here’s a template to use (simply copy & paste!):
Subject: Please consider supporting my CoFund My Pet campaign to help pay for {insert your pet’s name here}’s care.
I recently started a fundraiser on CoFund My Pet to help me pay for {insert your pet’s name here}’s veterinarian bills. I chose CoFund My Pet because it would assure those that want to support me that only I could use the money raised and only for veterinary care expenses.
I won’t fully rewrite my campaign here to spare you having to read the same thing twice—there is a link below to my campaign’s story and why I need your help. I am trying to raise {insert your fundraising goal here} by {insert your campaign’s goal date}. Your donation can only help with vet bills.
Link to my campaign: {copy & paste the URL for your campaign here}
If you find it in your heart, please consider donating to support my campaign. If you are unable to, I certainly understand and appreciate you anyway. Regardless, would you reshare my campaign on your own Facebook page? There is a link to easily do so on my campaign’s page at the link above.
I appreciate your support and will keep you posted on my progress in updates to my campaign that will send an email and text alert to those following my progress.
Where can I share my pet’s GoFundMe?
Sharing your fundraiser on social media is an obvious way to earn donations. To reach more people, contact influencers and ask if they’ll share your fundraiser. Viral fundraising can raise money fast — we’re talking within mere minutes.
Take Chico’s story, for example. In October 2020, a 2-year-old Pit Bull named Chico was hit by a car. Chico’s mom Paulina owed more than $18,000 in emergency vet bills. She reached out to @WeRateDogs on Twitter, asking founder Matt Nelson to share her fundraiser. The result? She reached her fundraising goal in 30 minutes!
Unfortunately, the chances of getting your fundraiser shared by an influencer are slim. @WeRateDogs receives hundreds of requests a week and only shares one or two links. But who knows? You might get lucky, so it’s worth a try.
Where are the best places to share your pet’s fundraiser, and how can you maximize your post reach? Let’s take a look.
Apart from sharing your fundraiser link in a post, Facebook lets you raise money in two ways: by setting up a personal fundraiser or enabling donations in live videos.
You can also join Facebook groups that allow members to share fundraisers. Facebook’s explore feature even lets you find other fundraisers for pet causes if you need inspiration.
Facebook groups for vet bill fundraising
Before joining a group, read the rules to avoid getting rejected or banned. Be advised that posts may contain graphic content.
In 2020, Instagram tested a personal fundraising feature. Unfortunately, personal fundraisers are no longer available, but you can still promote an existing fundraiser by updating the link in your bio. If you have 10,000+ followers, you can also share the link in your story.
Best practices for sharing your pet’s fundraiser on Instagram
Instagram hashtags to raise money for vet bills
Reddit is a great place to raise money for all sorts of causes, including emergency vet costs. Just be aware that many pet-related subreddits, like r/Dogs, don’t allow members to promote fundraisers. Read the rules before posting to avoid getting banned.
Subreddits where you can share your pet’s fundraiser
Best practices for sharing your fundraiser on Reddit
Twitter is another great place to reach donors. Although you should add hashtags to your tweets, Twitter’s advanced search function lets users search by keywords as well.
Best practices for sharing your fundraiser on Twitter
Twitter hashtags to raise money for vet bills
Fundraiser for a Dog’s Vet Surgery Bill
This crowdfunding campaign for vet bills was started to pay for a surgery for Angel, a corgi puppy. Twenty seven people came together to raise nearly $3,000 for her life-saving surgery.
A stand out feature of this particular crowdfunding campaign was the number of updates that the organizer posted. During the campaign, she posted 5 updates giving donors news about Angel’s progress and health status.
YOU CAN AFFORD YOUR PUP’S SURGERY : HOW TO RAISE MONEY FOR A DOG 2020
You dont have to choose between your pet and your wallet when it comes to expensive vet visits. Prepare ahead of time for unexpected vet bills by finding the pawfect pet insurance.
With roughly 1 in 4 pet parents struggling to pay their vet bills, it’s no wonder why people turn to crowdfunding platforms. GoFundMe is the most “pawpular”, raising over $140 million in donations each month. Most pet campaign organizers are individual pet parents, but some animal rescue organizations are also crowdfunding donations.
Is GoFundMe a good way to raise money for your pets’ vet bills? That depends on several factors, like how much money you need and how many donors you can reach. Donation goals for vet bills range from $700 to $10,000 on average. Tragically, most of the GoFundMe pet campaigns we reviewed while researching for this article hadn’t raised half of their donation goal.
Whether you’re currently crowdfunding for vet bills or you’re not sure how you’ll pay for emergency care, read on to learn how to maximize visibility on your campaign and other ways to raise money.